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@Riot A serious discussion about gender. Please read

Can we expect or are you interested in a female monster some time next season? Right now only Anivia counts as a true monster that happens to be female. The closest to an Anivia is Shyvana or Nidalee, but that's only really when they transform. You have yordles who break the mold of females, but outside of that, all females follow suit of attractive, distinct females.

I know this isn't what people are talking about, but it might be an idea in the same direction. I feel like Sejuani was close to being a somewhat barbaric, yet still attractive and reserved female. The "Sabretusk Sejuani" is what her classic garb should've embodied imo, because it's revealing without having that beach bikini vibe.

To which actually kind of brings up a good point - it's possible to make a champ 'attractive' or 'loveable' beyond just their looks. I'm fairly certain this is part of Ezreal's popularity and probably involved in quite a few others.

Draven isn't exactly "handsome". But everyone loves him for his personality. His personality is what makes him so damn attractive.

Same with Ezreal. There's something about his personality that's really appealing (Indiana Jones is awesome in every way, so it only makes sense that kid Indiana Jones is just as awesome.). Also his goggles.

This is a brilliant analysis. As a female player, I completely agree. There definitely is a problem with the player base, and it is an alienation problem that is (unfortunately) currently supported by the average female champion. Maybe that's why I tend to gravitate to characters like Lux, Annie, and Orianna. I don't have an issue with sexualized characters, really, (my favorite ADC is MF and I think she is so cute!) but every time I see "nice ****, Sona" or "I wanna **** that Ahri" in game chat when I'm playing these characters...that bothers me. It is way too much like someone saying that to us in real life.

In many of your posts about Diana or about darkflame Shyvana's boob window you kept mentioning sexy qualities, or ways to keep in sexiness in despite the more conservative armor, or things that you find sexy about the character. There's not a problem with finding something sexy. There is a problem when choices regarding the character are made with sexiness - in whatever sense - in mind when it is not or should not be relevant to the character. Is there a problem with MF or Ahri being made sexy? No, because it's an important element of their character (as long as that character type is used sparingly). Is there a problem with what is basically death knights Shyvana or Sejuani for example being sexy? Yes, there kind of is. You're right that I don't know what goes on in your head. I only have your posts to judge from. But they have given me the impression that "How can I make this character sexy?" goes through your head when in many cases it really shouldn't.

I apologize for coming across as and, frankly, being really short about this issue, but reading and dealing with all of the horrible attitudes in this thread has taken its toll on my patience and politeness. And I won't be unfair and say there has been no improvement anywhere, ever. Syndra's alternate skin is fantastic, and if I weren't so terrible with her I'd represent it a ton. I also give you credit on Diana. But that comes with the knowledge that Soraka's character was destroyed so that she could be turned into a 14 year old girl and Syndra's default skin is the most fetish-fuely thing since Eve, and on top of that she had a literally heaving bosom in her login splash. While there are steps forward, it feels like each of those steps forward comes with a step back. Hopefully that explains why I'm skeptical of these claims of progress, and I acknowledge that those are probably projects that have been running for a long time.

I am not trying to be abusive or harass you, but I am being critical. You show more sensitivity to the issue than many others at Riot do (and definitely more than many players do), it just seems like you still miss some of the details.

This response might be curt because I'm bordering on brain-dead at the moment, nothing personal, just super tired:

Critical is fine, that keeps us thinking. I agree that there are incongruities with the Shyvana and Sejani skins. They don't need to be "sexy", I personally hate boob windows. Hate.

My brain actually runs opposite. I was put through the ringer with the Sejuani comments, which I have since reversed course on, and in response created an entire character who's only exposed flesh is her head and fingers, removed any sort of heal on her boots, threw a toilet bowl over her bossoms and put a giant brand on her face amongst other things. Hopefully that absolves me. No, I don't look at a champion and say "How can I make this sexy?" Hell, Diana is the epitome of sexy to me. BUT REMEMBER! I am not the only concept artist here!

Personally, I wish Syndra's alternate skin was her base, but that's simple preference.

Soraka, sorry, I have to disagree with you there. I think she's an elegant alternative to that abomination on hooves we had walking around.

Again, sorry for the short, stern-ish answers, you make excellent points all around, I'm just running out of steam a bit =)

Just out of curiosity IronStylus, could a female champion ever look like this (http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/155/5/8/female_viking_by_chrislazzer-d1ki2yx.jpg)?

If not, what would be some major issues? (I am going to assume readability.) If so, how do you think players would react?

I like this picture because it is so different from the expectations of "woman in armor".

Also, I found this blog post (http://exploringbelievability.blogspot.com/2012/01/character-design-style-of-substance.html) referring to Sejuani and (I am assuming?) Riot's feelings about female champions. Do you all still have this sentiment? (Plus it is a really good post that goes beyond feminism and more into why Sejuani and designs like her ultimately fail.)

As worthwhile a read as that post is from a number of meta-reasons, clothing design is still secondary to pose when it comes to sexualization.

Frankly, the fact that clothing is the primary thing brought up in discussions like this really shows how dominated these discussions tend to be by guys who are only weakly involved in feminism, strongly believing in equality but not really understanding the concepts.

This is not without exception, but sejuani is definitely alluding to the old ideals of heroic nudity that you'll find in things like Beowulf in order to establish both her courage and savagery. While poor execution is a reasonable complaint, saying she's "sexualized" misses the mark entirely and borders on implicit sl*t-shaming.

I'm not sure how much the opinion matters, but my girlfriend has absolutely not problem how the females look in this game. I can't believe that this game has degraded into something that's not about having fun and gameplay and rather something about how many curves and breasts a character is showing.

There's a fair array of all kinds of champions. Sexy females, sexy males, monsters, yordles, etc. They're all rationalized by the percentage of people who play, so obviously making 50% of your game sexy males would bring about a much larger outrage than if you had attractive females. Though, obviously, these arguments will still happen.

I don't understand how you could say you would rather play Olga, The Chunky Barmaid than Riven and be like, "holy $#@#, she's so different, I must own her and all of her skins." So the question is why would somebody make a character/skin that isn't appealing when they can create a much more likeable champion with a similar moveset to Olga?

As much as I understand Riot wanting to please everybody and trying to work hard to meet the needs of everybody, becoming conservative about things like breasts, butts, and curves is much like China bans blood and skulls. It's ridiculous.